March 15, 2011

Fukushima 50

Officials wearing clothing to protect against radiation work in a center to scan residents who have been within 20 kilometers of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant damaged by Friday's earthquake Tuesday, March 15, 2011, in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, Japa

A Japanese official who made contact with one of the 50 inside the control center. The official said that his friend, one of the Fukushima 50, told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job.

The 50 are working amid decreasing but still dangerously high levels of radiation.

"The longer they stay the more dangerous it becomes for them," said expert Margaret Harding. "I think it is a testament to their guts for them to say, 'We'll stay and if that means we go, we go.'"